


The Switch

by Missybee



Series: The Switch [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8525614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missybee/pseuds/Missybee
Summary: The day seems to start off the same as any other for the voltron gang but somethings a bit off with shiro.





	1. Training Room

**Author's Note:**

> So this was my first time writing a fanfiction and I'm pretty proud of it. I sadly suck at making titles for things. T^T  
> I'm a bit sadistic so I wrote something I'd wanna read. so its basically a fic that will eventually hurt you. I've tried my best to keep the beginning of it lighthearted but it gets pretty dark.  
> I wont be tagging this as any kinds of ships because i want that to be open ended and interpreted in what ever way the reader deems fit.  
> Also I don't know how to properly tag this just yet. I also don't think the chapters will be that long.
> 
> hope you enjoy it. :D

He was running. 

Running as far as he possibly could, trying his hardest not to trip over his own feet. He was out of breath, lungs on fire. He turned down a hallway and hid behind a pillar to catch his breath. 

“Pidge, do you copy?” he waited for a response. “ Hunk?.... Allura?.... Coran?!” Dead silent. 

 

 

The day had started like any other, which was in the training room trying to hone in on his swordsmanship. He upped the setting on the training bot because it'd gotten too easy. He moved around the thing easily, but it was still a challenge, and oh did he love a challenge. He was agile, so dodging the bot was easy. Trying to form a new strategy, however, was hard, with it attacking quicker than he could think of a way out. He had beaten this bot so many times that he didn’t doubt himself, but if the bot had eyes he was certain there would be death in them. The bot was set to kill, almost like it had a mind of its own again. The only difference was, the system wasn’t bugged and he could shut it off with voice command; he'd checked it a few times before he'd actually started this morning’s training. 

“You’re going to kill yourself.” He heard Pidge from the control room, hearing the small clicks from her computer. Okay, so maybe he'd asked Pidge to be there this morning as an extra precaution. 

“Can you…Ugh… have a little… whoa…..faith in me?” He said to her in between sword clashes and dodging. 

“It's not that I don’t, it's just…. don’t you think you're training too hard?” She looked up from her computer and to the monitor that was focused on him. She watched him slide across the floor to avoid a swing of the bots sword before standing up to look up at the booth. 

“Time out,” and with that the bot shut itself down. “What does that mean, Pidge?” 

“Well, for starters, you woke me up at 6 to come watch you, and it's almost 10.” She said as she sent the bot back to its home, and grabbed some water to bring her friend. Had he really been there for 4 hours? His body began to ache, he could feel the hours start to wear on him. 

“I will agree that today’s training might have been a little overkill, but we have to be ready,” he told her as she entered the room. “There’s a whole Galra army out there waiting to kill us.” 

“Yeah, I know, but the training bot is getting pretty close to its highest level.” She looked concerned, and it was an expression that he decided didn’t really suit her. He took the water from her and drank the whole thing in one go. Yeah, it had been 4 hours. On one hand, he felt good, but on the other, he started to feel the fatigue that came with a 4 hour intense workout at 6 in the morning. 

“THERE YOU GUYS ARE!” Lance announced his presence with a way too loud tone. “Is this really where you guys have been all morning?” Both Pidge and Keith had looks on their face, like they wanted to punch that smug smile right off his face. Pidge, more so than him, because she was probably up much later than he was. He felt bad for waking her up. 

Pidge fixed her glasses in that little way that she did, before heading back up to get her computer and Rover. “I’ll see you guys in the dining hall.” 

“Wait Pidge, we have to go to….” He stopped mid-sentence because she turned back to him with a look that could kill. Normally, she had little patience for lance but today she was tired and didn’t want to deal with Lance in the slightest. “Ummm…. Yeah, Pidgy-pie go on ahead, Hunk should be there already. He’ll tell you.” And with that, she turned away and continued on her mission. 

“You woke her up too early again, didn’t you?” Lance said once he was sure she was no longer in earshot. 

“What did you want anyway, Lance? You burst into the room, it must have been important.” Or at least whatever Lance deemed important. 

“Oh come on, babe, I can’t have wanted anything more than to see you practice?” There was that smug, shit eating, grin again, which was never far from that face, which Lance paired with a wink of his eye. Keith felt his ears heat up at the nickname. So he did the only thing he thought was best, which was punch Lance in the shoulder. 

“Dude take a joke,” Lance said, grin cleaned off his face, and rubbing at his sore shoulder. 

Keith was too tired to deal with Lance and his idea of comedy to continue standing there, so he started to walk out of the training room towards the dining hall. Lance was close behind, with his hands behind his head. “You're too serious and uptight, you know that, right Keith?” 

Keith continued to ignore him, or at least try to, because Lance felt the need to continue to talk about how Keith had no sense of humor. Keith started to wonder how he could shut him up, and began to regret hitting his shoulder instead of his face, but he’d never hear the end of that so he let it go. 

“Oh yeah, so Allura wanted to speak to all of us.” Lance said with a shrug. “Apparently it’s something to do with Shiro,” Keith stopped in his tracks, that last part had really caught his attention. Did Shiro do something? Did something happen to him? “Keith, you okay, babe?” This time Lance said it to get him out of his head, a small bit of playfulness threaded together with his concern. Lance knew Keith being in his head wasn’t good for him. When Keith looked up, Lance was close to his face. His ears grew warm again. “Your breath stinks. When’s the last time you brushed your teeth?” he said to hide his blush. 

“Hey, I’ll have you know I brush them every day. Maybe it's just your breath! Did you even brush them before you woke up Pidge? Or, did you just use your morning breath to torture her awake?” Lance started to walk again, this time leading the way. 

“Hey! I’m not you, Lance!” they continued to walk to the bridge, playfully arguing as they went.


	2. questions...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When they got to the bridge, everyone but Shiro was already there. Pidge had been kind enough to grab Keith something from the dining hall; she was kind when she wanted to be, and Keith appreciated that. 
> 
> “Paladins, we need to discuss something,” when Allura spoken she sounded upset but stern. “Has Shiro mentioned remembering anything else from his time as a prisoner?”

“Lance, do you copy? Please come in?” He was tired, out of breath, but he was desperate to find anyone. “Lance, buddy, babe, do you copy? Please answer me.” He waited for a response. One he feared might never come. The response was just above a whisper and sounded distressed, but he knew that voice anywhere, In any tone, at any volume. 

“Keith” and just as quick as it came the com dropped out. 

 

When they got to the bridge, everyone but Shiro was already there. Pidge had been kind enough to grab Keith something from the dining hall; she was kind when she wanted to be, and Keith appreciated that. 

“Paladins, we need to discuss something,” when Allura spoken she sounded upset but stern. “Has Shiro mentioned remembering anything else from his time as a prisoner?” 

Everyone was caught off guard by her serious demeanor. They only really saw her like this when they first met, and a few times when they were in battle, but somehow this seemed different from her usual seriousness. She spoke in such a serious tone, but she was visibly upset. Keith had been so focused on Allura that he hadn’t noticed that everyone had responded and was now looking at him. 

“No, he hasn’t told me anything. His memories are still just bits and pieces.” Keith said. Keith was the only one that Shiro would trust with those memories. Everyone had enough to deal with, including Keith, but he didn’t want Shiro to suffer through his memories. 

With a heavy sigh Allura turned to the monitor and brought up a room that looked like a prison cell. Shiro was pacing the small room. 

“WHAT THE HELL ALLURA?” Lance was the first to speak. Everyone was so shocked by seeing Shiro in a cell. 

“You can’t do that to him!” Pidge said, with venom on her tongue. “Why’d you put him in there?” 

“I didn’t. We woke up this morning to find him in there. It appears as though something is bothering him.” You could hear the worry in her voice now. She might not have known them all as long as she knew Coran but they all meant the world to her, including Shiro. 

“Has anyone noticed anything off about Shiro lately?” Coran finally chimed in. Everyone shook their heads. “Okay, well we’re going to have to ask you all to steer clear of him while he’s in there. We don’t exactly know what caused this and we don’t...” 

At this point, Keith tuned out Coran. He opted for staring at Shiro, pacing his small room. He was running around in circles trying to figure out if there had been any abnormalities in his usual behavior. He couldn’t find one, but there Shiro was, pacing a jail cell. He could see how tense Shiro was. Something was definitely wrong. Then it hit him, Shiro had mentioned something the other day about having nightmares. Ones that seemed so vivid and real it had shaken him right to his core. 

Keith was startled out of his thoughts when Lance nudged him towards the door. “I think he’s just hungry. Apparently he was training since 6.” And with that, Lance was dragging him out of his thoughts and out of the room. He would almost call himself impressed with how well Lance knew him. The next thing he knew, Lance was pulling him into his room and locking the door. He waited a few minutes before he spoke. 

“What aren’t you telling us, Keith?” He had never heard Lance so serious before. His face was neutral, and his voice was filled with concern, there was no hiding that.   
“You checked out of the conversation and just stared at the monitor. So where did that pretty little brain of yours wander to?” Lance had poked him in the middle of his forehead for dramatic effect. 

“I’m not sure I know what you mean. Shiro's been nor…” 

“Bullshit.” Lance interrupted, grabbing Keith by his collar. “Your expression gave you away. Now, what was it?” 

Keith pushed Lance's hand away, and walked towards Lance’s computer to bring the video feed of Shiro up again. He stared blankly at the screen, silent while he tried to find a lie to give to Lance and get him off his back. But he found none, and instead remembered how Shiro told him he had to trust Lance, meaning he had to tell him the truth. 

“He told me the other day he had been having nightmares. Bad ones, from what I could tell.” He moved towards the bed and sat down. “He said they felt so real to him. Like it actually happened.” 

“Were they memories? Was he remembering his time as a Galra prisoner? Or was it something else?” Lance stared Keith down, waiting for an answer. 

Keith couldn’t make eye contact with Lance, he could tell he was concerned and upset. He couldn’t look at Lance's face while he was like that. No beautiful toothy smile, for him to smile back at. He decided instead to look at his hands that had fallen into his lap. He hesitated, trying to piece together the best way to tell Lance. “He told me that it was a bit of both. Sometimes he remembered his time on the Galra ship, but sometimes,” he paused, not wanting to finish his sentence. Lance had sat next to him at some point, and placed his hand on top of Keith’s. 

“We can’t help him if you don’t tell me the rest, babe.” Lance faked a smile and a laugh in order to reassure Keith. Keith still hated it when Lance called him babe, but in this case it just seemed to calm him. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t completely annoyed by the man 24/7. 

“He said they were about us. He would attack us in his dreams.” Keith finally said, after a few minutes of silence. He looked up at Lance to see a confused expression fall over the other boy's face. So even though he didn’t want to, he continued anyway. “He would hunt us down and see to it that we couldn’t stop Zarkon. He said that he was ordered to do it. That he wasn’t in control of his actions. ” 

Lance let go of his hand and was now staring blankly at the wall. Keith began to stare at the screen again. He noticed that Shiro was no longer pacing the room. He was instead sitting in the corner knees pulled up to his chest. He had never seen Shiro look so vulnerable. "The way he talks about them worries me, Lance. He always sounds so scared, and a few times he's been trembling, but he never goes into details about them. I didn’t think they were that bad, but now. Seeing him like that," Keith pointed to the screen and waited for Lance to look up. "I regret that I didn’t notice it sooner, or that he didn’t tell anyone else about what he was dreaming, and how he felt about them." 

"He seemed so normal. If there was anything wrong no one would have known." Lance sounded so small, hurt in his voice. "But Keith, you of all people should have known. You know him better than anyone, better than me." Keith was never the best at counseling people, even Shiro. He hated seeing Lance so upset, sadness didn’t sit well on Lance's face. Keith knew he had to do something. So Keith decided to grab Lance's face, and turned it towards his. 

"Keith, what are you.." Lance shut his mouth as Keith brought their faces closer together. Lance's face turned bright red and Keith could feel how warm his cheeks got. Once Lance closed his eyes Keith pulled his head back, and then headbutted Lance so hard that he knocked him off the bed. 

"WHAT THE FUCK, KEITH," he said as he rubbed his forehead. Keith had started laughing at him from the bed. Lance stood up and tackled him to the ground. They rolled around until lance ended up on top of him pinning his hands above his head. Keith lazily tried to throw him off, but he was so happy to see those pearly whites again. 

"You're going to get it you asshole." And Keith couldn't help but burst into laughter. Lance looked at him with a confused look and loosened his grip on him. Keith took the opportunity to flip them so that he was on top of lance. "Sadness doesn’t suit you, Lance," he said as he held the squirming man tightly in place. Lance was no match for him when Keith was actually trying. 

"Fuck you, mullet man." Lance said glaring up at the other. "Can you let me up now?" 

"Aww what's the matter, babe? Never thought of yourself as a bottom?" Keith teased the other boy. He loved how red he got when the tables were turned on him. "I kinda like seeing you on your back." If it was possible Lance turned even redder at the comment. Keith stood up and fell back on to the bed, laughing uncontrollably the entire time. "You are such an ass sometimes." Lance said as he sat up and crossed his arms. 

Keith calmed himself and sat up to look at the boy sitting on the floor. "You do the same thing to all of us...Lance?" His statement went from playful to serious as he looked at Lance. Lance was dead silent, mouth agape, staring at the monitor. Keith looked away from him and towards the monitor, to see that Shiro had trashed his room, and his arm was glowing like it did in battle. "What is he....." Before Lance could finish his question, Shiro had taken to hitting the walls of the cell. Both boys sat, watching Shiro go crazy trying to get out of his cell. They were both shocked. Was this what Shiro feared would happen when he locked himself in the cell?


End file.
